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~l I 



A Brief History of the 

North American 
Gymnastic Union 



By Henry Metzner 

Translated from the German by 
Theo. Stempfel, Jr. 



In Commemoration of the One Hundredth 

Anniversary of the Opening of the First 

Gymnastic Field in Germany by 

Friedrich Ludwig Jahn 



Published by 

The National Executive Committee of the 
North American Gymnastic Union 

Indianapolis, Indiana 

19 11. 




- 






, 2> 



Copyright, 1911 

By The National Executive Committee of the 

North American Gymnastic Union. 



Otft 
JUL 2M§1I 



FOREWORD 

IT HAS been justly said that the North American 
Gymnastic Union, although it has been in exist- 
ence for over sixty years and has always taken 
an active interest in public affairs, as a national organi- 
zation has kept its light under a bushel. The reason 
for this may chiefly be found in the fact that the official 
language of the Turners is the German language, the 
furtherance of which has always been one of their aims. 
The Executive Committee of the Gymnastic Union 
is of the opinion that the history of the Turnerbund is of 
sufficient interest to warrant its publication in book form. 
The history was written by Henry Metzner of North 
Branch, New Jersey, who has been identified for over 
half a century with the Turner organization. The 
translation from the German was made by Theo.Stemp- 
fel, Jr., of Indianapolis. The article on the influence of 
the Turners on Gymnastics in public schools was con- 
tributed by Wm. A. Stecher, director of physical training 
in the public schools of Philadelphia. 

It seems appropriate to publish the book at this time 
as the year 1911 marks the one-hundredth anniversary 
of the opening of the first gymnastic field in Berlin. 
This may well be regarded as the real beginning of the 
playground movement which in late years has also taken 
root in this country. 

The National Executive Committee of the 
North American Gymnastic Union 

Indianapolis, Indiana, June, 191 1. 



CONTENTS 

Page 

Friedrich Ludwig Jahn ----- 5 

Three Pioneers of German- American Gymnastics 1 2 

A Brief History of the North American Gymnas- 
tic Union ------ 22 

The Establishment of the Turnerbund » - - 22 

The Civil War Period 36 

The Turnerbund After the Civil War - - - 43 

The Influence of the North American Gymnas- 
tic Union on Gymnastics in the Public 

Schools - - - - - - 54 

History of the Normal College of the North 

American Gymnastic Union 59 

Conclusion - - - - - - - 61 



FRIEDRICH LUDWIG JAHN 

XN THE spring of the year 1811, on the 
Hasenheide, near Berlin, Friedrich Ludwig 
Jahn established the first Tumplatz* an 
open field for the practice of physical 
training. This incident has acquired special signifi- 
cance, for it marked the introduction of that type of 
physical training, based upon Jahn's ideals, which has 
met with so much success and has found so many loyal 
followers at the present time. It is indeed appropriate 
that the centennial anniversary of such an important 
event in the history of physical education should be 
elaborately celebrated, not only abroad, but also in the 
United States. 

Jahn was prompted to undertake the practical appli- 
cation of his theories for immediate reasons. Napoleon, 
the political oppressor, had reduced Germany to a state 
of servile humiliation. By encouraging bodily exercise 
and fostering patriotic ideals in his students, Jahn hoped 
to supply his country with a body of young men inspired 
with patriotism and a love for freedom who, at the call 
to arms, would willingly sacrifice their lives to liberate 
Germany from the tyranny of a foreign state. 

This was perhaps the period of the deepest humilia- 
tion in the history of Germany. After the disastrous 
battle of Jena, October 14, 1806, it was not alone the 
iron rule of the seemingly unconquerable French dic- 
tator which contributed toward the national gloom. 
Even the most inspired patriots among the people, 



*A term coined by Jahn. The verb turnen (to perform gymnastic exercises) 
is of foreign origin, although Jahn considered it a genuine German word. Turner— 
gymnast; 7urnertunJ=gymnastic union; !Tu rn/es/=gymnastic festival; Turnverein, 
or 7umgemefWe=gymnastic society. 



Jl Brief History of the 



upon taking cognizance of the fact that the German 
princes themselves were in the service of Napoleon, and 
were waging war against their fellow-countrymen in 
order to earn the clemency of the French emperor and 
to gain a shred of land from some one of the tattered 
German kingdoms as a reward for their treachery, began 
to despair of the ultimate freedom of Germany. 

The youthful enthusiasts who had been prepared by 
Jahn for a war of liberation, fulfilled in a glorious fashion 
the hopes and the confidence that had been placed in 
them. When the call to arms resounded, Jahn and his 
Turners joined the ranks of the champions of liberty 
with glad hearts brimming with enthusiasm, and their 
example aided in no small way in kindling the glowing 
ember of patriotism. The baptism of fire administered 
to German gymnastics in the sad days of the Napoleonic 
regime has bequeathed to the Turners a sacred heritage, 
the love for freedom, which has been faithfully rever- 
enced in whatever locality Turning has found a home. 

However, on the occasion of the present writing, the 
political situation in Germany at the time of Napoleon- 
ism, is of importance only in so far as it helps to point 
out the motive which inspired Jahn, and gave an im- 
portance to his efforts which, under normal conditions, 
might not have brought his work into immediate popu- 
larity with those members of the community who were 
dissatisfied with the dandified militarism of the regular 
army, and ached under the yoke of the foreign tyrant. 



Friedrich Ludwig Jahn was born August 1 1, 1778, 
in the small village of Lanz, in the province of Branden- 
burg, Prussia. His mother gave him his first lessons in 



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reading and writing, and his father, the minister of the 
village, instructed him in the elementary branches of 
education. The boy was thus enabled to lead a free, 
untrammeled life, and to disport himself in the practice 
of various bodily exercises, which enabled him to attain 
a certain mastery in this field at a very early age. 

At the age of thirteen he was sent to the gymnasium 
at Salzwedel, and in 1 794 he moved to Berlin, where he 
continued his studies in the Gymnasium Zum Grauen 
Kloster. It is significant to note that it was difficult for a 
boy of his temperament to submit to the strict discipline 
of either school. Several years later, after secretly leav- 
ing Berlin, he went to Halle in order to study theology, 
although he felt no urgent call in this direction. 

As a student Jahn pursued an unfettered life. The 
universal temptation to go roaming out into the world, 
happily termed Wanderlust^ manifesting itself to an 
acute degree in his veins, he wandered about Germany 
with an observing eye, taking note of the country and 
its people, of their customs and manners, and of the 
various folk dialects and peculiarities. All this fostered 
a patriotic idealism in him which found expression in 
various pamphlets he issued at this period. 

When the war between Prussia and France was 
renewed in 1806, Jahn hastened to join the army, but 
before he could realize his purpose, his Prussian com- 
patriots had suffered a decisive defeat at the battle of 
Jena. This unhappy event had a crushing effect on the 
spirit of Jahn, whose hair turned gray over night in 
mental anguish over the terrible calamity. However, 
his optimism and faith in the ultimate success of Prussian 
arms reasserted itself in this period of gloom, for he 



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Jl Brief History of the 



■wrote with confidence of the time when all his hopes 
for a new, free and unified Germany would be realized. 

In 1810 we find him teaching at the school which he 
himself had attended in his youth, the Gymnasium Zum 
Grauen Kloster, and later, in the same year, at the Plamann 
Institute. His most important book, "Deutsches Volks- 
thum" (German Nationality), appeared at this time, and 
his plea for the unity of Germany was universally com- 
mented upon and heartily applauded. Furthermore, this 
year marks the beginning of his first practical attempts 
to introduce gymnastic exercises among his students, 
to infuse them with a patriotic love for freedom, to 
make them capable of bearing arms for their oppressed 
country, and to prepare them for the imminent war of 
liberation. 

As noted above, the first public Turnplatz was opened 
by Jahn in the spring of the year 1811. The boys and 
young men of Berlin, five hundred strong, responded to 
his call and followed him to the Hasenheide, where they 
indulged in gymnastic exercises under his direction. In 
spite of the freedom which he accorded to his scholars, 
Jahn was a stern disciplinarian in many respects, and 
compelled them to maintain good order and to observe 
good manners. 

On November 14th of that year, Jahn, Friesen and 
other men of like sympathies founded the Deutschen 
Bund, an organization with the purpose of defying the 
domination of their country by an alien power. The 
personnel of its membership was to be drawn from the 
German universities. This Bund inspired the founding 
of the Deutsche Burschenhaft, an association of students 



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North Jlmerican Gymnastic Union 



banded together for patriotic motives, which played such 
a prominent part in the political crisis of later years. 

Jahn and his Turners were among the first to respond 
to the call to arms issued by King William III of Prussia, 
on March 17, 1813, and in the campaign which followed 
they demonstrated their fitness as soldiers as members 
of the Landwehr, a voluntary military organization 
which they helped to establish. Owing to sickness, Jahn 
was forced to withdraw from this body before the close 
of the campaign, but as a reward for his services the 
government bestowed upon him an honorary salary of 
500 Taler, which was later increased to 800 Taler. 

In August of the year 1814 he was married to Helene 
Kollhof. Although he did not take part in the war 
against France in 1815, he was called to Paris upon the 
recapture of that city by the allied forces. In the follow- 
ing year his second great book, " Deutsche Turnkunst " 
(German Gymnastics), appeared in print. In the winter 
following the publication of this book Jahn mounted the 
public platform, where he gave courageous expression 
to the dissatisfaction that was felt on all sides because 
the government did not redeem the promise of a consti- 
tution given to the people previous to the resumption of 
the successful campaign against Napoleon. 

His uncompromising attitude on this point, although 
it won him many admirers among the people, did not 
gain him the good will of the government. This, together 
with the demonstrations of the Burschenschaften, which 
were attributed to his influence, ultimately led to the 
closing of his Turnplatz, a procedure to which similar 
organizations were subjected all over Germany. 

In 1819 the dramatist and literary critic, Kotzebue, met 



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Jl Brief History of the 



his death at the hand of Karl Sand, a fanatic student 
and member of the Jena Burschenschaft. As Kotzebue 
was in the employ of the Russian Czar, and bitterly 
opposed to the student organizations, his death was 
regarded as the result of an organized conspiracy among 
these societies. Therefore Jahn and his Turners were 
suspected of being accomplices in the assassination. 
Among the prohibitory regulations issued by the govern- 
ment as the result of this assassination was one which 
limited Turning in an organized manner to a prohibitive 
degree. 

In July of the year 1819 Jahn was placed under 
arrest on the charge of high treason, and the trial was 
delayed for five years until January 1 3, 1 824, when he 
was sentenced to two years' confinement in a fortress 
because of the disrespectful and derogatory remarks 
which he supposedly had made in alluding to the 
administration of the state. Jahn immediately drew up 
his self-defense in pamphlet form, upon which his sen- 
tence was revoked, and he was given his liberty. In 
the years which followed, until 1840, when Friedrich 
Wilhelm IV mounted the Prussian throne, Jahn was 
under the continuous suspicion of political demagogy, 
and though he lead a quiet, retired life, devoting himself 
to literary pursuits in his field, he was forced to seek out 
many new residences because of the pitiless political 
espionage and persecution to which he was subjected. 

In August of the year 1 838 his house was destroyed 
by fire and his rich library as well as his numerous man- 
uscripts were consumed by the flames. The Turners of 
Germany instituted a popular subscription and this 
enabled him to erect a new home upon his own prop- 



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North Jimerican Gymnastic Union 



erty. With the inauguration of the new king, Jahn was 
freed entirely of the strict surveillance on the part of the 
police, and subsequently the Iron Cross was bestowed up- 
on him, a delayed appreciation of his valorous conduct 
in battle. The interdict on Turning was removed in 
1 842, and immediately numerous Turning societies were 
organized in various parts of Germany whose members 
found a mutual bond in their patriotic sentiments. 

When the dissatisfaction caused by the misrule, and 
the utter indifference of the government to the popular 
demand for a constitution, which had been often prom- 
ised, infused the people with the spirit of the French Rev- 
olution and culminated in the revolutionary outbreaks of 
the year 1 848, Jahn was again thrust into public life as 
an elected representative to the National German Parlia- 
ment at Frankfort on the Main. But Jahn, the leader of 
the year 1811, was not emancipated to the level of this 
new aggressive spirit and failed to redeem the faith that 
was placed in him by his champions. The ambitions 
of the revolutionists were beyond his vision, and his 
period of enlightened leadership had become a record 
of the past. And so, at the second Turnfestival in 
Hanau, in July of 1 848, he found himself estranged from 
his own Turners who did not sympathize with his atti- 
tude in the Parliament. And Jahn, embittered and mis- 
understood, withdrew himself to Freiburg, where he 
died October 15, 1852. 

The Jahn of the year '48 has been forgotten; his 
memory has been dimmed in the light of Turnvater 
Jahn, the glowing patriot who revived the art of German 
gymnastics, and was influential as was no other single 
man in enkindling the youth of his country for the war 



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Jl Brief History of the 



of liberation. As such, and as the author of "Deutsches 
Volkstum," "Deutsche Turnkunst," and various other 
kindling articles and pamphlets aiming at the culti- 
vation of a healthy body and inaugurating the principle 
of German unity, he is honored today. 

His greatest contribution to society no doubt, is his 
service in the field of physical training, which has found 
so many exponents and followers and has spread its 
influence over alien lands. The centennial anniversary 
of the first Turnplatz seeks to give due tribute to the 
memory of Friedrich Ludwig Jahn as pioneer in the 
field of physical training and to accord him recognition 
for his gift to humanity. 



THREE PIONEERS OF GERMAN-AMERICAN 
GYMNASTICS 

The centennial celebration of the opening of the first 
Turnplatz has a vital significance for this country. It is no 
exaggeration to assert that the greater portion of all physi- 
cal training systems practiced in the public schools of the 
present day, at the universities and colleges, in the clubs 
and the schools devoted solely to that end are based on 
the theories of German gymnastics. That this is so 
is due to the pioneer work of Friedrich Ludwig Jahn 
and of his disciples, Carl Beck, Carl Follen and Francis 
Lieber, who fled to this country during the political tur- 
moil in Germany which followed the overthrow of the 
foreign tyrant, Napoleon. 

Upon rehearsing a history of German- American 
gymnastics, no matter how brief and concise, three 
eminent German scholars and disciples of Jahn, Carl 



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North yJmerican Gymnastic Union 



Beck, Carl Follen and Francis Lieber, will always remain 
pre-eminent and worthy of special mention. In order to 
evade the persistent espionage and the political persecu- 
tion to which they were exposed as prominent members 
of the Burschenschaft, these men fled the confines of their 
fatherland and crossed the Atlantic to the land of liberty, 
where they were the first to introduce Jahn's system of 
physical training, and to incorporate it in the liberal 
education of the colleges and universities. 

It was not their immediate or even their ultimate 
ambition to establish gymnastic societies on American 
soil, such as existed in Germany at that time, but they 
were pioneers in the sense that they established gym- 
nasiums, based on German models, equipped with 
German apparatus, and thus they cleared the way for 
the attempt to train the body as well as the mind in the 
American institutions of learning. Their success was 
not lasting, for when they were no longer personally 
identified with this movement, the practice of gymnas- 
tics was gradually discontinued or directed into other 
channels. But this does not lessen the service of Beck, 
Follen and Lieber, for they remain the pioneers of 
German-American gymnastics. 

Carl Beck was born August 19, 1 798, in Heidelberg, 
Germany. When in 1810 the family moved to Berlin, 
where Beck's step-father occupied the chair of theology, 
young Beck, who attended the gymnasium, distinguished 
himself as an unusually active Turner on the Hasenheide 
and gained the immediate friendship of Jahn. He was 
too young to take service in the campaigns against 
Napoleon, but later in life, as a student and member of 



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111 



Jl Brief History of the 



the Burschenschaft, he was active in the struggle for per- 
sonal freedom and national independence. 

Beck completed his studies at the University of 
Heidelberg in 1 822; was ordained as Lutheran minister 
and received the degree of doctor of philosophy from 
the University of Tuebingen. His step-father, De Wette, 
had sometime previously been banished to Switzerland, 
because he had written a letter to the mother of Sand, 
the assassin of Kotzebue, and Beck moved to that country 
where he became professor of literature and Latin at the 
Paedagogium in Basel. With Carl Follen he had par- 
ticipated actively as a Turner and member of the Burschen- 
schaft in the movement which aimed at the liberation of 
Germany and the emancipation of its people from a 
government under the tyrannical guidance of the omnip- 
otent Metternich, the Austrian minister. 

Carl Follen, born in Giessen, September 3, 1795, 
was the second oldest of three brothers. The three 
enlisted in the army, and at the close of the campaign 
against the French Emperor, together with a number of 
like-minded friends, they were charged with demagogy 
and became the victims of political persecution. Carl 
Follen wrote a defense of the Burschenschaft, published 
a number of highly poetic songs on Turning and Lib- 
erty, and fearlessly maintained the cause of the Hessian 
people against their government. He managed to escape 
arrest by his flight to Paris and from there to Basel, where 
he accepted a position as teacher. 

When the Prussian government could not prevail 
upon Switzerland to deliver Beck and Follen into its 
hands, and threatened war in order to attain this object, 
the two political refugees were finally forced to look for 



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North Jlmerican Gymnastic Union 



another place of safety. America was the promised 
land, and after obtaining letters of recommendation 
from General Lafayette in Paris, they took passage for 
their new home, and arrived in New York on Christmas 
day, 1824. 

The personal appearance of Beck inspired confidence 
and this, together with the letters of recommendation, 
soon enabled him to obtain a position that was well 
suited to his tastes and talents. With J. G. Cogswell, an 
eminent scholar, and George Bancroft, the famous his- 
torian, he established a boy's school at the summit of 
Round Hill, in Northampton, Massachusetts. During 
his five years of activity at this institution, he gained rec- 
ognition as a teacher, and established the first gymnasium 
in America based on Jahn's models. During this period 
he also translated into English Jahn's book, "Deutsche 
Turnkunst," and published it in Northampton. 

Carl Follen was active as a teacher in the Round Hill 
school until 1826, when he was called to Harvard as 
professor of church history, and later of German language 
and literature. At this university, Follen introduced 
German gymnastics, and established the second gym- 
nasium in this country, based on the principles of Jahn. 

The influence of the Round Hill school spread still 
further, and in September of the year 1826, Yale granted 
the sum of $300 for the endowment of a gymnastic field 
and for the purchase of gymnastic apparatus to be placed 
on the college campus. At the same time, the brothers 
Devight opened the "New Haven Gymnasium," in 
which gymnastic exercises were given a prominent 
part. In 1 828 a number of Amherst students established 



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JL Brief History of the 



a Turnplatz which was fairly well equipped with gymnastic 
apparatus of German invention. All these gymnasiums 
can be attributed to the example of Beck and Follen. 

Owing to the efforts of Dr. John Collins Warren, a 
follower and promoter of the system of physical training 
introduced by Beck and Follen, the Tremont gymnasium 
was established. Dr. Warren, who had become ac- 
quainted with Jahn's activity in Germany, through his 
friendly intercourse with these two disciples, had con- 
ceived the idea of obtaining the services of Jahn himself 
to conduct this gymnasium, but lack of funds prevented 
him from carrying this idea beyond its mere conception. 
Dr. Francis Lieber, the third of the German pioneers in 
the field of physical training, was obtained to fill this 
vacancy. 

In spite of the many successes with which Beck, Follen 
and Lieber met in the department of gymnastics soon 
after they established themselves on American soil, their 
influence was not vital enough to be enduring. For 
Turning, in the sense that Jahn conceived it, there existed 
neither the right comprehension nor the favorable condi- 
tions under which it had flourished in Germany. "The 
introduction of gymnastic exercises throughout the 
country," writes Dr. Warren, "promised for a time to be 
the beginning of a new epoch of education. As long as 
they charmed by their novelty these exercises were pur- 
sued with zest, but since their value and importance was 
not generally understood, they were gradually neglected, 
and finally forgotten. However, the results which these 
institutions accomplished excelled, in my opinion, the 
most extravagant expectations." 

After some years Beck, Follen and Lieber found them- 



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North Jlmerican Gymnastic Union 



selves forced to drop the teaching of gymnastics. Their 
eminent erudition in other branches of knowledge 
directed their activities into different channels, where 
they gained influence, distinction and a reputation far 
beyond the confines of their second home. 

In 1 82 7 Dr. Beck married Miss Louise A. Henshaw. 
In 1830 he erected his own school in Phillipstown on 
the Hudson, and from 1832 until 1850 he was active at 
the University of Harvard. Upon resigning his professor- 
ship at Harvard he devoted himself eagerly to his duties 
as a citizen and to his private studies. He was elected 
twice to the state legislature, and was a member of sev- 
eral literary societies. He visited Germany three times, 
partly in 'order to recuperate and partly for literary 
research. At the outbreak of the civil war he enlisted 
as a private in a company of Cambridge volunteers, but 
was finally rejected on account of his advanced age 
which, however, did not prevent him from fitting out 
hundreds of soldiers with his own means and sending 
them into the field of battle. He died March 19, 1866. 

Carl Follen became a member of the Harvard faculty 
in 1831, where he held the chair of German language 
and literature for five years. At the same time he gave 
lectures in New York and Boston on the German poets, 
which were attended with great success. It was through 
his influence that the German language and literature took 
such deep root in the intellectual circles of New England 
at that time. In 1 833 he became a member of the anti- 
slavery society, and thus he forfeited his re-appointment 
to Harvard university. 

His "Address to the American People," which he had 
written at the request of the anti-slavery society, appeared 



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Jl Brief History of the 



in 1836, and in this he laid down the principles upon 
which this society maintained its attitude toward the 
question of the day. The pamphlet made a deep 
impression, but called forth vehement opposition on the 
part of the pro-slavery press, which reproached him for 
hurling firebrands into the social and political life of 
his new fatherland. Follen replied energetically, and 
asserted his right to maintain those very principles in 
his new home which he had defended in his native land 
and which had resulted in his flight from political perse- 
cution. 

Follen was ordained as Unitarian minister and was 
the head of a congregation in New York in this capacity 
until 1838, when he accepted a call to East Lexington. 
A great portion of his time was devoted to his literary 
and political lectures and to other literary pursuits. The 
translation of his revolutionary songs written during the 
storm and stress period of Germany is worthy of special 
notice. 

In the winter of the year 1 840, he accepted an invita- 
tion to lecture on German literature before the New York 
Mercantile Library. He was forced to discontinue these 
lectures in order to attend the dedication of the newly 
built church at Lexington. On February 13, 1840, he 
embarked on the steamboat Lexington, which was to 
convey him home. That night the ship caught fire, and, 
with the exception of two sailors, everyone on board 
was either drowned or burned to death. 

The tragic death of Follen called forth general sym- 
pathy, and even his bitterest opponents on the question 
of slavery shared the general sorrow which followed his 
unfortunate death. 



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North Jlmerican Gymnastic Union 



Francis Lieber, the third of the Turner pioneers, was 
born in Berlin, March 1 8, 1 800. He too felt the tyranny 
of alien domination and caught the enthusiasm which 
inspired the people to revolt. At a very impressionable 
period of his life he became one of the devoted fol- 
lowers of Jahn. When the call to arms resounded 
throughout the land in March of the year 1815, he and 
his brother were among the first of the many young men 
who enlisted to fight against Napoleon upon his return 
from Elba. At the victorious close of this memorable 
campaign, during which he was severely wounded 
several times, he eagerly resumed his studies. 

His intimacy with Jahn and his love for freedom 
resulted in political persecution, and finally in arrest. 
Since attendance at a Prussian university was denied 
him, he completed his studies at Jena. As it was impossi- 
ble for a man of his convictions to entertain any hope 
of ever being employed in the service of the state, he 
allied himself with a number of young men in Dresden 
who had organized a society in order to take part in the 
Grecian struggle for independence against the Turks. 

Bitter disappointment followed upon his previous 
enthusiasm, for during his three months stay in Greece 
he came to respect the Turks more than the Grecians, 
whom he had come to liberate, and with a number of 
other disillusioned young men left Greece. Without 
means and without passports he arrived in Rome, where 
he applied for help at the Prussian ministry, which at 
that time was headed by the famous historian, Niebuhr, 
who took an immediate interest in young Lieber and 
entrusted him with the education of his youngest son. 

Niebuhr interceded with King Friedrich Wilhelm III 



a: 



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Jl Brief History of the 



in behalf of the young man. Under pledge of im- 
munity from the Prussian monarch, Lieber returned to 
Berlin after he had spent a year in Rome. Even the 
promises of kings sometimes prove elusive pledges to 
build upon, for immediately upon his arrival in Berlin, 
Lieber was arrested and taken to the fortress Koepe- 
nick. Although Niebuhr was successful in gaining him 
his freedom, Lieber did not feel safe in Germany and 
sailed for London, and eventually from there for America, 
where he arrived in the year 1827. 

He first located at Tremont, where he interested him- 
self in gymnastics. Later he founded a swimming school 
in Boston, a new departure in the educational field, and 
John Quincy Adams, President of the United States, paid 
a personal visit to this novel establishment. Lieber's 
thorough and general knowledge gained for him the 
esteem and respect of all educational and political cir- 
cles, as well as the friendship of many eminent scholars, 
authors and statesmen. During the civil war he spent 
a large portion of his time in Washington, where he 
became an intimate advisor of the administration on 
questions of military and international law. 

He acquired a reputation as an authority on the 
problems of the day and on all questions touching upon 
political science. His first great work appeared in 1 837, 
under the title "Manual of Political Ethics." It was fol- 
lowed by "Legal and Political Hermaneutics" (1 839), and 
"Civil Liberty and Self-Government" (1853). Of these 
three, which are considered his greatest works, the last- 
named has become the most popular. His last literary 
work, "The Origin of the Constitution of the United 
States," remained unfinished at the time of his death, 
October 2, 1872. 



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North Jlmtrican Gymnastic Union 



The motto above the door of the study of Francis 
Lieber read: 

"Patria Cara, 
Carior Libertas, 
Veritas Carissima." 

It was also the motto of his life, for it was the motive 
in all of his activities. No matter how dear his native 
land, liberty was more precious to Francis Lieber, and 
truth he prized as the highest ideal of all. 

Those who are in any way identified with or interested 
in German-American gymnastics of the present day, have 
good reason to be proud of its three pioneers, Beck, 
Follen and Lieber. In their love for the adopted father- 
land they dedicated to it the full sum of their rich 
knowledge, and spared no energy in the cause of 
patriotism. 




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Jl Brief History of the 



A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE NORTH 
AMERICAN GYMNASTIC UNION 

German-American gymnastics, as embodied in the 
North American Gymnastic Union, date back to the mid- 
dle of the last century, the history of the Union embracing 
over sixty years of tireless activity. Since the days of its 
beginning, when the ambitious and inspired young men, 
imbued with the spirit of progress and freedom, trans- 
planted the ideals of Jahn to American soil, this organiza- 
tion has cleared its own path and, in spite of numerous 
internal and external conflicts, has never lost sight of 
the ultimate goal. 

The impetuosity of the early days has made way for 
the thoughtful deliberation of later years, to which the 
Turnerbund owes its flourishing Normal College, its many 
successful turning schools, its influence upon the public 
school system throughout the land, as well as the spirit 
of unity and brotherhood, which inspires the individual 
members. 

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE TURNERBUND 

The first gymnastic societies in the United States 
were organized toward the close of the year 1 848. Until 
the middle of the fifties all of these societies owed their 
organization and their flourishing state to the many Ger- 
man immigrants, who came to this country when the 



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North Jlmerican Gymnastic Union 



revolutionary movement in Germany in 1 848- 1 849 was 
suppressed. For all those who had been friendly to the 
cause of the people were forced to flee from their native 
land in order to escape persecution and the pressure of 
the reaction. Among the thousands of political refugees 
that fled to American soil, there were many who had 
been members of a Tumverein, who prized the cause of 
turning, and who were eager to establish it in their new 
home. 

Although there was no legislative barrier to the 
founding of these organizations, the influence of the 
Know-Nothing party, narrow minded, puritanical and 
opposed to everything foreign, was used against these 
societies. These men who had sacrificed all for their 
ideals, and had come to this country as political refugees, 
were not received with open arms, but were regarded by 
many with mistrust and suspicion. It was not easy for 
them to overcome these barriers and to establish gym- 
nastic societies. 

The oldest Tumverein in the United States which 
flourishes to the present day, is the Cincinnati Turngemeinde, 
founded November 21,1 848, at the instigation of Fried- 
rich Hecker. The New York Turngemeinde was also 
organized in 1 848. The Philadelphia Turngemeinde, which 
today is considered one of the strongest societies in the 
Bund, was founded May 15, 1849. Internal dissensions 
arose, and the dissatisfied members established the 
Sociale Turngemeinde in November of that year. A third 
society, the Socialer Tumverein, was organized at almost 
the same time. Several months after the gymnastic 
festival of the Bund, in 1854, these three societies com- 
bined to organize the Socialdemokratische Turngemeinde. 



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Jl Brief History of the 



A society with a similar name was founded in Baltimore 
in 1 849. Very little is known of the Socialistischer Turn- 
verein of Brooklyn, established in 1850 and dissolved 
during the civil war. On June 6, 1850, the Socialistischer 
Turnverein of New York was founded. 

These six societies had barely gained a foothold 
when they established a Turnerhund. The Socialistischer 
Turnverein of New York gave the first impetus to this 
end in its resolution of July 15, 1850, urging a closer 
union of all the societies in order to insure their own 
existence, to protect the common interests and to give a 
basis for mutual cooperation. A plan of organization 
presented by the representatives of the New York and 
Brooklyn societies was accepted, and it was further 
resolved to invite representatives of all the societies to 
a convention {Tagsatzung), which was finally held in the 
home of the Philadelphia Turngemeinde on the 4th and 5th 
of October, 1850. Many differences of opinion came 
to light at this first meeting, particularly on political 
questions, for one party wished to make the promotion 
of Socialism* one of the main functions of the organi- 
zation. The other faction advocated that the Turnverein 
should confine itself solely to physical training. On one 
point, however, all were agreed, that the Turnerhund 
should manifest a tendency toward freethought in the 
broadest sense. 

The first year of the gymnastic union did not pass 
as smoothly as had been hoped. The societies had 
not come to realize their duties toward the central organi- 
zation and barely heeded the proclamation of the pro- 
visional central executive committee. The Philadelphia 

* For a definition of Socialism, as understood by the Turners of that time, see 



page 



46. 



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North Jlmerican Gymnastic Union 



Turngemeinde invited all the societies to take part in a 
general gymnastic festival to be held in that city Sep- 
tember 29 and 30, 1 85 1 , and the executive committee 
took advantage of this opportunity to call together a 
second convention. 

The Tuwfest and the convention proved to be com- 
plete successes, according to the first number of the 
Tumzeitung, the official organ of the Bund. At the 
convention the following societies were represented : 
New York, Boston, Cincinnati, Brooklyn, Utica, Philadel- 
phia and Newark. The Indianapolis Turngemeinde, as well 
as the Rochester Turnverein, had signified their intention 
of joining the Turnerbund. After a heated debate it was 
finally decided to name the organization Socialistischer 
Turnerbund. The most important resolution was un- 
doubtedly that which called for the establishment of a 
newspaper which was to be the official organ of the 
union, and was to be kept free of all personal polemics 
and of any tendency toward partisanship. The societies 
were reminded of their duty to maintain the practice of 
military drill. 

When the Turnerbund had finally been assured of a 
permanent organization, the practice of the German 
system of physical training was gradually taken up by 
all the large cities in the land. Even in the South, 
although the Germans were not so numerous as they 
were farther north in the East and in the West, and 
although the Turnerbund was not in accord with the 
South on the question of slavery, many gymnastic soci- 
eties were organized. These societies had become the 
gathering places for the Germans. Vehement opposi- 
tion toward these so-called "aliens" was gradually evinced 



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Jl Brief History of the 



by the fanatic party press, and from the pulpit they were 
scored for their un-Christian conduct and attitude. As 
a result of this many-sided opposition, the Turnvereine 
gathered strength and gradually gained influence and 
the respect of fair-minded citizens. 

It is characteristic of those days that the revolutionary 
tendency which had driven these men from their father- 
land was still maintained. Political refugees received 
their support; an agitation was on foot to encourage their 
erstwhile brothers to renewed revolutionary demonstra- 
tions; the resolution by which the societies were urged 
to continue the practice of arms was prompted by a 
desire to return to Germany at the first sign of an 
outbreak, and to take an active part in the uprising of 
the people. 

The Turnzeitung of November 15, 1851, showed that 
22 societies had been organized in the United States, of 
which 1 1 had joined the Turnerbund, and that the total 
membership of these Turnvereine amounted to 1,672. 
Much space in this paper was devoted to the practice of 
physical training and to illustrated articles on this subject. 
The larger societies established turning schools, and the 
first attempts were made to initiate boys and girls in this 
new practice. 

Physical training bore the stamp of Jahn's time. 
There were no professional teachers of physical training, 
and classes were conducted by those best qualified. The 
gymnastic apparatus was of primitive and awkward con- 
struction in comparison with that of to-day. 

In the year 1852 two gymnastic festivals were held, 
one in Baltimore and one in Cincinnati. Thirty societies 
were represented at the convention held in conjunction 



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North j4merican Gymnastic Union 



with the Turnfest in Cincinnati. A resolution was passed 
at this meeting by which each gymnastic society was 
forced to subscribe for as many copies of the Turnzeitung 
as it had members. This resolution later became the 
bone of bitter contention. 

The book on gymnastics which was published in 
1853 under the title "Das Turnen," did not meet with 
the popular success which had been expected for it. It 
had been written by Eduard Mueller with the hope that 
it would help the smaller gymnastic societies in the 
practice of physical training, but it contained so many 
technicalities of language that it proved of no value to 
those who were not acquainted with the terms applied 
to the many physical exercises. 

Gymnastic festivals were held in Louisville and 
in New York in the year 1853, and in September of the 
same year a convention was called at Cleveland. At 
this time the Turnerbund was divided into five districts, 
according to locality. An executive committee was 
placed at the head of each district, and these in turn 
made their reports to the central organization. 

At the convention in Cleveland it had been resolved 
to urge the establishment of non-sectarian German 
schools. Many societies sought to realize this ambition 
and either organized Schufaereine (school societies) or lent 
their financial support to those which were already in 
existence. Many a German-American school of that 
time owed its success to the energy and efforts of the 
Turnvereine, which thus honored German traditions. 

The otherwise extremely successful Turnfest in Phila- 
delphia, 1854, at which calisthenics and apparatus 
turning by divisions were first introduced, was attended 



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Jl Brief History of the 



with unpleasant disturbances. The town rowdies and 
loafers gathered at the outskirts of the festival grounds 
on Lemon Hill, and sought in various ways to disturb 
the gymnasts. The jeering and hooting grew to such 
volume that the Turners saw themselves forced to reply 
with physical violence, whereupon a hand to hand battle 
ensued in which many were seriously wounded. Eleven 
of the Turners were indicted by the grand jury, but 
towards the end of January, 1855, after repeated post- 
ponements, the case was finally dropped. 

The convention in Pittsburg, September 1 1 and 
12, 1854, is comparatively uninteresting. Although the 
Bund embraced 62 societies, the report was somewhat 
unfavorable, particularly as to finances, as these had 
been woefully mismanaged. It was resolved that not 
more than one society in any one city could belong to 
the Turnerbund, but that this Tumverein could establish 
branch societies if it so desired. The Turnzeitung became 
the subject of heated debates. It was decided to issue 
it once a week in larger form and in smaller type 
in order to make room for a discussion of political 
questions. Philadelphia was again selected as the 
executive center. It was decided to give the Turnfest in 
Cincinnati, and Buffalo was chosen for the convention. 

The ensuing year was not fraught with many encour- 
aging results. The heated arguments between the North 
and the South over the slavery question had a depress- 
ing influence on the social life of the TurnVereine. The 
Turnzeitung ignored its actual purpose, that of furthering 
and encouraging the practice of physical training, and 
manifested a lively interest in the burning political 
questions of the day. And this is only a reflection of 



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North Jlmerican Gymnastic Union 



the attitude of the societies themselves, for they lost 
interest in their gymnastic activities, and devoted them- 
selves to politics. 

Members of the Know-Nothing party showed a mali- 
cious enmity toward the German citizens, and their fre- 
quent attacks finally forced the Turners to resort to arms 
in self-defence. Especially, in Cincinnati and Columbus 
was this the case. At a city election in Cincinnati a 
veritable riot ensued which resulted in blood-shed. At 
a Turnfest in Columbus the city rowdies found occasion 
to vent their ire on the "white jackets," as the Turners 
were jeeringly dubbed, and the riot which followed as- 
sumed the aspect of a battle. One of the attacking 
party was killed and nineteen Turners were arrested on 
the charge of assault with intent to kill. After a success- 
ful plea on the part of the lawyer of the defense they 
were finally acquitted. 

By reason of the agitation of the American party 
against all foreigners and by their own use of the mother 
tongue, the German element at that time was separated 
almost entirely from social intercourse with the rest of 
the population. This increased the range of activities 
within the Turning societies and everything was done to 
make the social life there as interesting and as many- 
sided as possible. 

A plan for the establishment of a Turner settlement 
originated in Cincinnati in March of the year 1855. It 
was proposed that each settler should buy stock to the 
extent of fifteen dollars. The total amount thus realized 
was to be invested in a large plot of land. Upon this 
a city was to be laid out, and each investor was to be 
guaranteed a home or a farm. Only members of the 



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111 



Jl Brief History of the 



Tumerbund were to be invited to share in this co-operative 
plan, and at the following convention in Buffalo it was 
to be decided whether the Turnerbund should have per- 
manent charge of this undertaking. As a result the 
Turner settlement of New Ulm, Minnesota, was founded 
and its history is of great importance in the annals of the 
Turnerbund. 

The convention in Buffalo, 1855, marks a turning- 
point in the history of the North American Gymnastic 
Union. By taking a decided stand against slavery, the 
organization entered into the field of practical politics. 
The internal dissensions which came to the surface 
more and more, threatened the unity of the Bund and 
introduced a spirit of discord among its members. 

The platform which was voted on and accepted by 
the representatives of forty-seven societies after a heated 
debate embodied the following principles: 

"The Turners will vote for no man who is a member 
of the Know-Nothing party, or who is identified with 
any Nativistic corporation or party or does not declare 
himself openly as opposed to any organization of this 
nature. 

"The Turners are opposed to slavery, and regard this 
institution as unworthy of a republic and not in accord 
with the principles of freedom. 

"The Turners are opposed to all prohibition laws as 
undemocratic in theory and not feasible in practice." 

Towards the last of October, 1855, the newly-elected 
executive committee took office in Cincinnati. This body 
was confronted with many difficulties. The treasury 
was at low ebb. There were many unpaid subscrip- 
tions to the Turnzeitung and the Turnerbund was finally 



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North Jlmerican Gymnastic Union 



forced to overlook the resolution passed in 1852. A 
dispute -which arose over the division of the Turnerbund 
into districts caused further difficulty. The year closed 
with the Turnfest in Cincinnati, where, on account of the 
finances, no prizes for the literary works submitted could 
be awarded. 

The membership of the Bund was comparatively 
small in proportion to the total population of the states, 
but, even though it may prove difficult to produce tan- 
gible results, the fact remains that they played a promi- 
nent part in the politics of the day. The attitude and the 
spirited agitation of the Turners induced many of the 
early German immigrants who had become identified with 
the Democratic party to change their minds, and to fall in 
line with the Unionists. The Turners not only manifested 
the courage of their convictions in debate, in the press 
and in public discussions, but they braved personal dan- 
ger for the anti-slavery cause whenever the opportunity 
presented itself. Such was the case in Boston and Cin- 
cinnati when Wendell Phillips, the celebrated abolitionist 
orator, was defended by the Turners against the furious 
attacks of hostile mobs ; again, in New York, when the 
Turners responded to a call to police a Fremont dem- 
onstration. 

The affairs of the Gymnastic Union were not as 
flourishing as they had been in the past. The practice 
of gymnastics was gradually neglected, and the interest 
of the Turners was absorbed by politics. The older 
Turners began to withdraw entirely from the gym- 
nasiums, and the young men, who otherwise would 
have filled up the membership of the societies, were not 



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Jl Brief History of the 



available for this purpose, for the immigrants of this time 
had not the same interest in the ideals of the Turners. 

The new executive committee, which met in Cincin- 
nati, was confronted with a large indebtedness, and the 
organization was threatened with a calamitous future. 
A number of the southern societies resigned from the 
Bund because of the newly-adopted anti-slavery para- 
graph in the platform. The uncompromising attitude 
of the Tumzeitung toward these societies complicated the 
situation further, and the Bund was split into two parties. 
The convention, which was to be held in Washington, 
promised reconciliation, but the executive committee 
suddenly transferred the meeting to Pittsburg. 

The motive which prompted this change became an 
object of suspicion, and as a result two conventions were 
held, one in Washington and the other in Pittsburg. 
Thus the situation became still further complicated. 
Attempts to reconcile the two factions failed. At the 
convention in Pittsburg it was resolved to establish a 
school for gymnastic teachers, trade schools for the 
members of the Bund, and gymnastic schools for boys 
and girls. Each of these factions issued a proclamation 
declaring that they alone deserved recognition as the 
official gymnastic union. 

The year 1856 is of importance, in that it marks 
one of the most brutal attacks made by the Nativistic 
rowdies on the Turners. In May of that year, 1 60 members 
of the Cincinnati Turngemeinde, together with Turners from 
Newport and Covington, held a gymnastic festival on 
the Kentucky side of the Ohio river. The disturbances 
which had begun in the afternoon came to a climax upon 
the return march of the gymnasts from the festival 



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North Jlmerican Gymnastic Union 



grounds, and in the street fights which followed a great 
number of participants were seriously wounded. The 
Turners fought their way through the mob and sought 
refuge in the Newport gymnasium, where they were in a 
position of defense throughout the night. On the fol- 
lowing day 107 Turners were arrested. The bond 
of each was fixed at $1,000, the entire sum, $107,000, 
being furnished by two citizens of Newport. Later on, 
after investigation, all were dismissed save nine, who 
were kept in confinement, and finally, after a long trial, 
were given their freedom. 

Two gymnastic festivals were held in September of 
the year 1 85 7, the one in Milwaukee and the other in 
New York, and both were eminently successful. 

Repeated attempts at reuniting the two factions of 
the Bund failed, so in September of the year 1857, the 
one branch held its convention in Detroit, and the other 
in Paterson, N. J. The disappointment of the various 
societies at the utter failure to bring about a reconcilia- 
tion resulted in the gradual elimination of both factions, 
as the quarrel had now assumed a personal nature, and 
dealt with mere formalities rather than with vital princi- 
ples. This elimination was hastened when the executive 
committee of Cincinnati issued a proclamation urging 
the various societies to remove such members who did 
not declare themselves in entire accord with the plat- 
form of the Bund. A great many of the societies 
ignored this proclamation entirely; some repudiated it, 
and in many cities it resulted in the founding of inde- 
pendent organizations. 

The report of the executive committee of the western 
faction, which held its convention in Indianapolis in 



(33) 



JL Brief History of the 



September, 1857, showed that 20 societies had been 
disbanded; that 15 had resigned, and that 13 had 
joined the union. The treasury was at low ebb and the 
outlook for the future did not seem promising. Only 
1 3 societies were represented at the convention of the 
eastern faction, and the report of the executive com- 
mittee indicated a decrease in membership. 

The executive committee of the year 1858, which 
had its headquarters in Dubuque, made active efforts to 
put the resolutions of previous conventions into practice. 
Public speakers were engaged to undertake lecture 
tours and to direct the interest of the societies into intel- 
lectual channels. The larger societies were urged to 
establish schools for the development of class leaders. 

The impetus toward effecting negotiations between 
the rival factions was given by the executive committee 
in Washington, and it was finally decided to have a 
joint session at a gymnastic festival to be held at Balti- 
more in August, 1859, when the conditions under 
which the reconciliation could be effected were to be 
discussed. Representatives of the opposing factions met 
in Baltimore, and an agreement was drawn up which 
was to serve as a basis for this consolidation. The final 
step to reunite the Turnerbund was made by the Wil- 
liamsburg Turnverein at an extra session, which was 
convened in that city November 1 3, 1 859. 

The small attendance at the gymnastic festival at St. 
Louis, 1 860, was undoubledly due to the critical political 
situation in the country. The coming presidential elec- 
tion promised to be a turning point in the history of the 
nation. In several proclamations the executive com- 



(34) 



North Jimerican Gymnastic Union 



mittee urged the members of the Turnerbund to support 
Lincoln. 

The ominous reports which emanated from the 
South in the midst of the jubilation and the excitement 
which followed the election of Lincoln, boded ill for 
the peace of the nation. The Confederate States were 
mustering their troops in Virginia, and were menac- 
ing the national capital. To the northern friends 
of the rebellion, this appeared as an opportune mo- 
ment for action. This feeling vented itself in the 
now famous Baltimore riot, which raged around the 
Turners of that city. For, after the fall of Fort 
Sumter, the state flag of Maryland had been hoisted 
upon all public buildings. The Union flag remained 
on only one building, the unpretentious hall of the 
Baltimore Turnverein. On April 19 th a large mob 
gathered in front of the building, and under threat of 
destroying the hall, demanded that the Union flag should 
be replaced by the state flag. To this the Turners 
defiantly replied that they would rather blow up their 
own building than defame it by hoisting the rebel 
standard. 

On April 20, the Turner Hall, though valiantly defend- 
ed by the Turners, was captured by the rebel mob and 
every movable bit of property and all the gymnastic 
apparatus was thrown upon the street. The neighboring 
office of the official organ of the gymnastic union and the 
printing establishment of the German paper Wecker 
met a similar fate, both buildings being razed to the 
ground. Many Turners were forced to flee the city in 
order to save their lives. 

Before the Turners could realize what had happened, 



(35) 



Jl Brief History of the 



and before they could entrust the affairs of the Bund 
to new hands, war was declared and their activity was 
diverted to the field of battle. 

THE CIVIL WAR PERIOD 

Those who were friendly to the cause of the Union 
welcomed Lincoln's call to arms with enthusiasm, and 
their sentiment was echoed by the great majority of the 
German population of the United States. All party 
differences and private interests were laid aside in order 
to stamp out the rebellion and to ward off the great 
danger which threatened to dissolve the nation. 

The Turners were among the first to respond to the 
call to arms and enlist in the Union army. In some 
regions where the societies were large enough, entire 
companies were recruited from their ranks, and in New 
York, St. Louis and Cincinnati regiments were formed, 
which were almost entirely composed of Turners. 
Numerous societies had to give up their gymnastic work 
entirely, and many were dissolved because the majority 
of their members had taken up the musket. Just as the 
period preceding the outbreak of the war had been the 
most inglorious, so these days were perhaps the most 
glorious in the history of the Turnerbund. 

The committee report of the Rochester convention 
showed that the Bund included in the neighborhood of 
1 0,000 members, and it is safe to assume that at least 
6,000 of these enlisted in the Union army. But with 
these, about 2,000 men who had been Turners before 
the outbreak of the war must be included. 

How the spirit and enthusiasm that animated the 
Turners in these stirring times was manifested in many 



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North yJmerican Gymnastic Union 



ways in all parts of the country, is clearly shown by the 
incidents that follow. 

The Turners in Kansas allied themselves with the 
Free State party, and stubbornly aided in preventing the 
pro-slavery party from making the territory a slave state. 
The Germans gave valuable aid to the Free State faction 
in their bloody encounters with the Missouri border 
ruffians in 1855. An interesting incident is reported in 
the account of the conflict between thirty-five Turners 
and an equal number of native Americans from Leaven- 
worth, who under Captain Haas, wrested a cannon and 
other weapons from the ruffians in Kickapoo. 

The national capital was not only threatened by an 
invasion by the Southerners, January, 1 86 1 , but was also 
endangered by the secessionist element within the city. 
The two Turnvereine of Washington organized a com- 
pany of sharpshooters, composed of eighty-one men, and 
offered their services to Colonel Stone to aid in defend- 
ing the city. They also gave valuable service upon the 
arrival of Lincoln in Washington, and on the day of his 
inauguration they formed a part of his body-guard dur- 
ing the ceremonies. 

In the beginning of January, 1861, the Turners of 
St. Louis passed a resolution by which the Turnverein 
was dissolved and in its stead a military organization to 
guard the Union and the cause of freedom was estab- 
lished. It was further resolved to sacrifice life and prop- 
erty, if necessary, to keep the county of St. Louis loyal to 
the administration in case the state of Missouri should 
decide to secede. These steps were taken at a time 
when the magnitude of the danger which threatened the 
country was barely realized. It was prompted purely 



(37) 



jl Brief History of the 



by patriotism and by the enthusiasm for the cause of 
freedom. The Secessionists had made every effort to 
win the Turners over to their side, for they were fully 
aware of their influence over the rest of the German 
population; and when they did not succeed in this 
effort they persecuted the "white jackets" to the limit of 
endurance. At the time of Lincoln's call to arms three 
complete and well drilled companies of Turners in 
St. Louis were ready for immediate service. These were 
incorporated in the 1st Missouri Regiment and took 
part in the campaign in southern Missouri. When, at 
the end of their three months' military service they 
were dismissed, they joined the 1 7th Missouri Regiment 
which was made up almost entirely of Turners and 
became known as the Western Turner Regiment. They 
took part in numerous battles and accompanied Sherman 
on his march to Atlanta. 

The Turners of St. Louis were undoubtedly the first 
to come to the protection of the Union in the hour of 
danger, and it is due to their influence and that of their 
German compatriots that the state of Missouri did not 
secede from the Union. How prompt and effective 
their action was is shown by the capture of Camp Jack- 
son, May 10, 1861. This act disheartened the Secession- 
ists, and kept the city and county of St. Louis from throw- 
ing the weight of their influence to the southern cause. 

When the president of the New York Turnverein 
issued a martial proclamation, 1,200 men responded and 
were enlisted for two years in the service of the Union. 
Of these, three companies were made up of New York 
Turners, two from Williamsburg and one from Newark, 
N. J. The remainder of the regiment was supplied by 



(38) 



North jlmerican Gymnastic Union 



the gymnastic societies from Boston, Philadelphia and 
other cities. Under command of Colonel Max Weber 
they were sent to Fortress Monroe, Virginia, June 1, 
1861, and took part in the capture of Norfolk. As part 
of the army of the Potomac, the regiment fought in the 
battles of Savage Station, White Oak Swamp, Mal- 
vern Hill, Fredericksburg, South Mountain, Antietam 
and Salem Heights. On May 10, 1863, the regiment, 
now numbering only 460 men, returned to New York. 

The Turners of Cincinnati were also among the first 
to take up arms. The men were recruited from the 
gymnastic societies all over Ohio, and for this reason 
the regiment was known as the Ohio Turner Regiment. 
Under the leadership of McCook and Willich, it took 
part in the siege of Corinth, in the battles of Perryville, 
Chickamauga, Chattanooga, Lookout Mountain and 
Missionary Ridge. This 9th Ohio Regiment, which was 
composed of 1,135 men, was considered one of the 
fittest of the Union army, and during its three years' 
service earned undying fame. 

Four hundred men responded to the summons of 
the Philadelphia Turngemeinde for volunteers, and, forming 
four companies, they placed themselves at the disposal 
of the governor. Pennsylvania had, however, supplied 
its share of men before these volunteers could be mus- 
tered into service, and so they turned to New York, 
where they joined the Astor Regiment. A fifth company 
of Philadelphia Turners traveled to St. Louis where they 
enlisted in the Western Turner Regiment. 

The Turner Union Cadets of Chicago, composed of 
105 men, organized themselves on April 17, and were 
ready to go into battle within four days. A second 



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m 



J. Brief History of the 



company, organized after the departure of these men, 
joined the 24th Illinois. 

The Milwaukee Turnverein organized a battalion of 
sharpshooters, and their forty members were augmented 
to 1 05 by Turners from other Wisconsin societies. In 
the beginning of May they joined the 5th Wisconsin as 
Company C, Turner Rifles. 

When the Turners of Indianapolis returned at the 
close of their three months' service, a desire was urgent 
among them to organize a wholly German regiment, and 
with the approval of Governor Morton this was accom- 
plished. The regiment was placed under the command 
of August Willich, and the ten companies were recruited 
from Indianapolis, Madison, Aurora, Lawrenceburg, 
Terre Haute, Lafayette, Laporte and Evansville. The 
regiment, which departed September 6, 1861, for Louis- 
ville, was enrolled as the 32d Indiana Regiment, and 
gained for itself a well-earned reputation in the battles of 
Rowlett Station, Shiloh, Stone River, Chickamauga, Mis- 
sionary Ridge and on the march to Atlanta. 

Although it is practically impossible to determine the 
exact number, there was hardly a gymnastic society in 
the Union which was not represented by at least several 
Turners on the field of battle. In view of the disorgan- 
ized condition of the Turnerbund, no record of the 
Turners who enlisted in the army was kept, and, conse- 
quently, the names of those men who sacrificed their 
lives in the cause is, to a great extent, unknown. 

An account of the civil war period in this limited 
history of the Turnerbund is necessarily brief, but it is well, 
perhaps, to enumerate the more important regiments 
which were composed wholly or in part of Turners: 



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North Jlmerican Gymnastic Union 



"From Missouri the 1 st (Colonel Blair), the 3d (Colonel 
Franz Sigel), the 12th (Colonel Osterhaus), the 17th 
(Colonel Hassendeubel, later Colonel Kramer), and the 
41st (Colonel Wiedemeyer); from Wisconsin the 5th, 
the 9th (Colonel Salomon), the 26th (Colonel Hans 
Bobel); from Ohio the 9th (Colonel McCook), the 28th 
(Colonel Moor), the 37th (Colonel Siebert), the 106th 
(Colonel G. Tafel), the 108 th (Colonel Limberg); from 
Illinois the 9th (Colonel Mersy), the 24th (Colonel Fred- 
erick Hecker), the 43d (Colonel Engelmann), the 82d 
(Colonel Frederick Hecker); the 1st and 2d of Kentucky; 
the 47th of Pennsylvania; the 20th of New York (Col- 
onel Max Weber, later Colonel Engelbert Schnepf); the 
2d Cavalry Regiment of Minnesota (Lieutenant-Colonel 
Pfander); the Artillery Brigade of Ohio (Colonel Max 
Hoffmann), and the Artillery Brigade of Minnesota (Col- 
onel Wm. Pfander*)." 

During the early part of the war many unsuccessful 
attempts were made to infuse new life into the Turnerbund. 
The Turner societies of New York, which had been 
strengthened by numerous immigrants, formed a close 
alliance in February, 1 863, and when they had gained a 
firm foothold they made an attempt to call the Turnerbund 
back into life. A general gymnastic festival, to which the 
societies from all over the country were invited, was 
determined on as the best means to effect this end. 

Over 800 visiting Turners took part in the festival, 
September, 1864, and every one of these evinced a 
desire for the reorganization of the Bund, and at the 
convention which was held at this time it was decided 
to retain the platform of the old Bund, and to give the 
title of Am erikanischer Turnerbund to the new organization. 

* H. Huhn, Turner Almanac, 1890. 



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Jl Brief History of the 



A proclamation was issued by the central committee 
to the gymnastic societies of America calling upon them 
to group themselves into districts and to join the new 
Turnerbund. This met with general approval, and the 
beginning, made by Cincinnati with five societies, was 
rapidly followed by the districts of New England, West 
New York, St. Louis, Connecticut and Wisconsin. 

The convention in Washington, April 3, 1 865, is of 
primary importance in the history of the North American 
Gymnastic Union, for at this meeting the unfortunate 
period of factional strife was terminated, and the cause 
of German gymnastics was taken up with renewed vigor. 
The friendly spirit shown by all the delegates contrib- 
uted greatly toward the amicable readjustment of 
affairs, which furthered the revival of the Bund. The 
general enthusiasm, however, can no doubt be attributed 
to another cause which aroused great rejoicing at this 
memorable meeting. 

Dispatches telling of the glorious victories of the Union 
arms, which culminated in the capture of Richmond 
and promised the total suppression of the rebellion in 
the near future, arrived in Washington during the session 
of the Turner delegates, and were received with unabated 
enthusiasm. The city became a scene of joyous festiv- 
ities, into which the organizers of the new Bund entered 
with great enthusiasm, and the spirit of the occasion 
manifested itself within the convention hall. They had 
good reason to rejoice, for the defeat of the Confederacy, 
with its great national significance, came simultaneously 
with the formation of the vigorous, reunited Turnerbund. 



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North Jlmerican Gymnastic Union 



THE TURNERBUND AFTER THE CIVIL WAR 
The gymnastic societies, which had managed to exist 
through the turmoil of the civil war, flourished rapidly 
after the Washington convention of the re-united Turner- 
bund. It was, indeed, a period of enthusiastic activity. 
Upon returning from the field of battle, the Turners 
resumed the work in their societies, which had been 
neglected for such a long time, with renewed vigor and 
interest, and they found new and valuable allies in the 
numerous German immigrants of that day who had 
received a thorough gymnastic training in the mother 
country. The New York executive committee did every- 
thing in its power to encourage the work of rejuvenating 
and strengthening the Turnerbund. It planned the estab- 
lishment of a normal school for the training of teachers 
of gymnastics in order to supply the societies and 
schools with competent men who had enjoyed the 
benefit of a complete theoretic and practical study of 
gymnastics. It may be of interest to note that at the 
Turnfest in Cincinnati, in September, 1865, a nation- 
al meeting of the teachers of physical training, the 
first of its kind in the history of German-American 
gymnastics, was convened in that city. Furthermore, 
an effort was made to gain the interest of prominent 
educators and their co-operation in the publication of a 
series of non-sectarian German school books to be used 
by the societies and German academies. The ultimate 
ambition was to introduce the teaching of German into 
the public schools of the country. The Turner societies 
evinced a decided interest in all intellectual questions, 
and prominent lecturers were engaged to address their 
members. 



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I® 



Jl Brief History of the 



Aside from matters concerning gymnastics and other 
educational questions, the solution of the political prob- 
lems of that time was foremost in the minds of the Turn- 
ers. In their national convention in St. Louis, 1 866, the 
following resolutions were adopted and forwarded to 
the United States congress: 

(1) "The constitution of the United States provides 
that congress shall make all those laws and provisions 
necessary for the general welfare of the nation; there- 
fore, it should be its duty to pass such laws as will insure 
the future, and shall enforce those republican provisions 
of the constitution which will extend to every citizen of 
the United States his rights as such in each state of the 
Union. 

(2) "The constitution shall be amended in such a 
form that the cardinal principles of the Declaration of 
Independence will have a legal status. 

(3) "The convention advises the Turners and all 
friends of freedom to be alert and manifest an active 
interest in all public questions, so that congress may 
realize that it will be supported by a loyal body of 
citizens only when it makes an honest effort to smother 
the national turmoil by instituting energetic provisions to 
eradicate certain existing evils." 

The New York district added the following : 
n It shall further be the duty of this organization to 
support all attempts to raise the intellectual standard 
of the people, and to promote a non-sectarian education 
of the youth by establishing and furthering good schools." 
It is significant to note that the manifesto was issued 
at a time when the promise of the civil war for a true 
democracy was in imminent peril, and this, as the Turners 



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North Jlmerican Gymnastic Union 



stated in the preamble to their resolution, was due to the 
fact that President Andrew Johnson did not redeem his 
promises and was sacrificing the interests of the country. 

In 1867 the effort was made by the executive com- 
mittee to form an independent progressive party. 
Although the attempt failed because the Turners were 
unwilling to divert their activities into partisan political 
channels, the movement retains an historical interest. 
The leading spirits of this proposed organization felt that 
a true democratic republic could be attained only when 
the demands of their platform were carried into execution. 

The most significant paragraphs of this platform call 
for the impartial administration of justice without discri- 
mination as to race, color or nationality; for the protec- 
tion of life and property; for an enumeration of the 
uniform legal qualifications for voters in the national 
elections; for a general and uniform distribution of 
taxes and the maintenance of the principle of a pro- 
gressive capital and income tax. The platform also 
demanded that free entry should be given all raw prod- 
ucts which could be produced only in insufficient quan- 
tity within the United States ; that better national support 
should be given to the department of education; that 
its work should be extended farther, particularly in 
the South ; that compulsory school education be intro- 
duced as a necessary guarantee against the misuse of the 
voting privilege ; that all monopolies should be restricted 
and that the employee should be protected against the 
unjust demands of his employer. Furthermore, a national 
standing army was advocated on the basis of compul- 
sory military service ; laws protecting and encouraging 
desirable immigration were urged, and, in conclusion, 



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Jl Brief History of the 



the Turners advocated the abolishment of the existing 
presidential system, declaring it to be an unrepublican 
institution, and advised in its stead a national executive 
committee, to be elected by congress, and the separation 
of the military authority from all political power as more 
expedient and more in harmony with the spirit of the time. 

At that time the Turnerbund was composed of 18 
districts and 1 4 8 societies, with a total membership of 
10,200. 

In 1 87 1 the executive committee published a manifesto 
addressed to the people of the United States, in which the 
attitude of the Turners toward the public questions of the 
day was defined at length. It is hardly necessary to 
enumerate the specific clauses of this manifesto, since the 
political policy advocated by the Turners has been set 
forth in the above account of the platform of the free 
progressive party. However, one paragraph dealing 
with socialism as it was understood by the Turners at 
that time, is of special interest. The manifesto makes 
the following statement: 

n Socialism of to-day, in which we Turners believe, 
aims to remove the pernicious antagonism between labor 
and capital. It endeavors to effect a reconciliation 
between these two, and to establish a peace by which 
the rights of the former are fully protected against the 
encroachments of the latter. 

" In short, socialism wishes to actuate business hon- 
esty. There is no doubt that the next European revolu- 
tion will primarily exhibit a social character, and it is 
difficult to foresee the outcome. However, since self- 
preservation is the inherent impulse of the human race, 
the ultimate solution of this vital problem will be in the 



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North Jlmerican Gymnastic Union 



final victory of the oppressed classes. They, in their 
turn, must not violate justice in their demands. They 
must not endeavor to build up some sort of a new aris- 
tocracy of the working class upon the ruins of the old 
aristocratic class, with its manifold privileges and numer- 
ous monopolies and its unwarrantable advantages — a 
heritage bestowed by the blind accident of birth. 

"We wish all men to be working men, sustaining 
themselves by the product of their labor, but by no 
means do we favor the creation of new class distinctions 
upon the overthrow of the present controlling class." 

It will be observed that a great number of the reforms 
advocated by the Turners in their manifestos some forty 
odd years ago anticipated the political questions which 
have come to the foreground at the present day.* The 
question of universal suffrage, which is the basis for 
much feverish discussion in our age, was propounded to 
the American people by the Turners in October of the 
year 1871. It was urged that men and women should 
have an equal status in the political life of the nation, 
and that the power of the ballot should also be conferred 
upon the latter. This clause, which caused great excite- 
ment in numerous gymnastic societies and led to heated 
debates, was finally withdrawn at the Louisville conven- 
tion in the following May. 

It is but natural that the momentous crisis of the civil 
war, and the serious problems of reconstruction with 
which the nation was confronted at the conclusion of 
that terrible struggle, should leave a deep impression 
upon the minds of the " Forty-eighters," as the political 
refugees of the German revolution of 1 848 were called. 
On the other hand, the Americans learned to appreciate 

*The Turner Convention at Denver, 1894, recommended the establishment of 
Postal Savings Banks. 



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Jl Brief History of the 



the noble spirit of self-sacrifice which the Germans had 
shown in the dark days of the civil war. Intercourse 
between the men of these two great races became more 
frequent day by day in business, social and political 
ways. Gradually the conviction dawned upon both that 
the one could learn a great deal from the other, and 
unconsciously, in the meanwhile, the Germans became 
more and more Americanized. 

However, the chief factor in this process of trans- 
formation, which manifested its slow but irresistible 
progress in all the German clubs and societies, was the 
maturing youth. The revolutionary spirit of the n Forty- 
eighters" which inspired the fathers, was strange and 
incomprehensible to their children who had grown up 
in other surroundings, and had been imbued with differ- 
ent thoughts and feelings. The English language, which 
came so much easier to this new generation, attained 
precedence at all the social gatherings and entertain- 
ments, although the official language continued to be 
German at all formal meetings of the Turners. 

Again, it became evident that the Turners of America 
had but little in common with the Turners of Germany, 
as was boldly pointed out in the annual report of the 
executive committee of 1872. 

" The Turners of America have nothing in common 
with the Turners of the old fatherland, except the system 
of physical training," says the report, and then proceeds: 
"Of our endeavors for reform in the political, religious 
and social fields, of the struggle against corruption and 
slavery in all forms, the Turners in Germany know noth- 
ing, although this has been the object and the inspiration 
of our gymnastic union." 



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North Jlmerican Gymnastic Union 



The Turners of Germany had ceased to participate, 
as an organization, in the attempts to solve the political 
problems of their country, and confined their activities 
solely to the practice of physical training. On the other 
hand, the American Turners continued to be as actively 
interested in the vital questions of the day after the civil 
war as they had been in the past. In order to empha- 
size the different sphere of the Turnerbund, the execu- 
tive committee made the following statement in 
this report: "Our Turnerbund might be regarded as a 
mere branch of the German Turnerbund. But, on the 
contrary, the American Turnerbund, as it is organized to- 
day, with its platform and its constitution, its hopes and 
endeavors, is pre-eminently American." 

The Chicago executive committee, which made the 
statement quoted above, further urged the various soci- 
eties to awaken an interest in the Turnerbund in the 
native Americans, and to popularize the practice of 
physical training through their influence. 

At the national convention of the Turnerbund at 
Cleveland in 1878, a series of resolutions embodying 
the principles of the Turners was adopted. They advo- 
cated the right of recall, the initiative and referendum 
for all important laws, the abolishment of all complicated 
representation of the people, and declared the artificial 
distribution of power, as, for instance, the election of 
senators by the state legislatures, to be a pernicious 
obstacle to true democracy. 

As a proper solution for certain social problems as a 
means for the betterment of social conditions, the Turners 
recommended laws for the protection of labor against 
capital; for the inspection of factories, food and lodgings 



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Jl Brief History of the 



as a sanitary safeguard, and for the restriction of child 
labor in factories. The abolishment of the senate and 
the presidency in their present form was recommended 
on the ground that these were identical with certain 
monarchical institutions. The cessation of the practice 
of donating or selling public land to private individuals 
and corporations was also advocated in this declaration. 

Many of the more conservative members of the 
Turnerbund were opposed to this declaration of princi- 
ples as drawn up by the Cleveland convention, but it 
was adopted by a referendum vote. Some years later 
the paragraph dealing with the senate and the presidency 
was stricken from the declaration by a primary vote. In 
its stead the election of senators by popular vote was 
proposed. 

At the convention held at Indianapolis in 1 880, Dr. 
H. M. StarklofF of St. Louis, the first speaker of the 
executive committee, made the following remarks in his 
opening address: 

"We have gained that personal liberty the German 
Turners once dreamed of; we have done our duty in that 
direction. That part of our program is fulfilled, and it 
remains for us to find a new field for our energies. How 
would it be if we would work with all our might to intro- 
duce physical training into the public schools of this 
country? We could not conceive a more beautiful gift 
than this to bestow upon the American people. It seems 
to me that this should be a worthy enterprise, for whoso- 
ever has conquered the youth has gained the future." 

In 1 88 1 a select group of German- American Turners 
from Milwaukee, under the leadership of George Brosius, 
at that time the director of The Normal School of the 



(50) 



North Jlmerican Gymnastic Union 



Turnerbund, crossed the Atlantic as the first team to attend 
and compete in a gymnastic festival in Germany. The fes- 
tival was held in Frankfort on the Main, and, upon their 
return to this country, the American Turners brought 
back with them the 2nd, 3d, 5th, 6th, 13th and 21st 
competitive prizes. 

As the years passed by the Turners devoted their en- 
ergies less to the political and more to the educational 
side of their program. The history of the Turnerbund 
now consists chiefly of an account of the various gym- 
nastic festivals and conventions which, though eminently 
successful, are of particular interest only to those who 
are intimately identified with the organization. 

The national festivals, which in former years had been 
held annually, grew too expensive as the membership of 
the gymnastic union increased. The financial risk as- 
sumed by the society, under whose auspices the festival 
was held, became too large. For that reason, since 
1885, these gymnastic festivals have been held only once 
every four years. Up to that time the societies had been 
represented by the picked men of their organization and 
the total number of active competitors at such festivals 
ranged from 200 to 300 men. However, when competi- 
tive gymnastics between the societies were introduced the 
total number of active Turners who competed ran into 
thousands. At the national Turnfest in Cincinnati ( 1 889) 
1,179 Turners competed; in Milwaukee (1893) 3,380; in 
St. Louis (1897) 2,600; in Philadelphia (1900) at the 
golden jubilee of the Turnerbund 1,650; in Indianapolis 
(1905) 1,400, and in Cincinnati (1910) 1,800. At St. 
Louis, in 1897, school children were invited for the first 
time to participate in a Turnfest. Since then mass drills 



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Jl Brief History of the 



by the children have always been an interesting feature 
of the festivals. The next national festival will be held 
at Denver, Colorado, in 1913. 

In the year 1 904 the Turnerbund was represented by 
a class of eight men under the leadership of Henry Suder, 
director of physical training in the Chicago public schools, 
at the Turnfest in Nuremberg, Germany. They proved 
to be no mean rivals of their German brethren in 
the art of physicial training. The next year at Indi- 
anapolis, for the first time in the history of the 
gymnastic union, a class of German Turners, under 
the leadership of Professor F. Kessler, of Stuttgart, 
attended a Turnfest in this country. The gymnastic union 
of Germany comprises a total membership of 750,000 
men, from which number the best nine Turners were 
selected to represent their organization on American soil. 
It is not surprising, therefore, that these Turners took 
home with them the highest competitive prizes that were 
awarded at the festival. The rare skill and the finish of 
all their apparatus work and their versatility in the vari- 
ous gymnastic exercises amazed the spectators and 
caused general comment. Mr. Charles W. Fairbanks, then 
Vice-President of United States, witnessed the gymnastic 
exercises of the German Turners and bade them, in the 
name of the nation, a hearty welcome to this country. 
After a brief visit to the larger cities of the middle West 
the German Turners returned to Europe, highly elated 
at the friendly reception that had been accorded them. 

In 1 908 the Turnerbund arranged an excursion to the 
German gymnastic festival in Frankfort on the Main. 
Under the leadership of George Brosius, the oldest and 
most deserving teacher in the Bund, a class of ninety 



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North jJmerican Gymnastic Union 



American Turners was accorded great applause for a 
meritorious exhibition of dumb-bell exercises. The Amer- 
ican Turners also gave an exhibition of base-ball, and our 
national game aroused unwonted interest among the Ger- 
man spectators. From 500 to 600 members of the North 
American Gymnastic Union marched in the festival par- 
ade and were applauded by the enthusiastic citizens of 
Frankfort and their guests, who showered the American 
visitors with flowers and wreaths. 

From the very beginning the societies of the North 
American Gymnastic Union have endeavored to extend 
the practice of physical training to all without discrimin- 
ation as to age or sex. The boy, the youth, the man, the 
girl, the woman, even the father and mother, are not 
merely tolerated, but are urged to participate in the 
gymnastic work of the society. In consequence, the in- 
fluence of the gymnastic union has increased steadily 
from year to year. According to the statistics, compiled 
January 1 st, 1 9 1 1 , the North American Gymnastic Union 
is composed of 24 districts with 232 societies and a mem- 
bership of 38,751. 

The enrollment in the various gymnasium classes is 
as follows: 

5298 Seniors 
3645 Juniors 
2225 Business Men 
4800 Women 
10,755 Boys 
7665 Girls 

The fencing sections enroll 326, singing sections 
2061, dramatic sections 546, and women's sections 6155. 

Some of the gymnastic societies also maintain elemen- 
tary schools, freehand and mechanical drawing schools, 



(53) 



A Brief History of the 



schools for the study of German, and girls' industrial 
schools. 

The headquarters of the Turnerbund-were removed from 
St. Louis to Indianapolis in 1 898 and the executive com- 
mittee has been located in that city since that time. 



THE INFLUENCE OF THE NORTH AMERI- 
CAN TURNERBUND ON GYMNASTICS 
IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS 

Dr. Edward Mussey Hartwell, in his admirable report 
to the United States Commissioner of Education, 1 89 7- 
98, in the chapter on Physical Education, speaking of 
gymnastics in the city schools in the United States says: 
"Neither the colleges nor the athletic organizations of the 
country have earned the right to speak with authority on 
the question of what constitutes a well-ordered and prac- 
ticable system of physical training for elementary and 
secondary schools. Therefore, the more or less success- 
ful introduction of school gymnastics, since 1 884, by the 
cities of Chicago, Kansas City, Cleveland, Denver, Indian- 
apolis, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Cincinnati, St. Paul, San 
Francisco, and Boston, through the action of their res- 
pective school boards, has been chiefly due to the zeal 
and insistence of the advocates of the German and Swed- 
ish systems of gymnastics, who were prepared to speak 
with knowledge and to act with intelligence. In every 
city named above, excepting Boston, German free and 
light gymnastics have been adopted, and the directors of 
physical education are graduates of the Seminary or 



(54) 



m 



North Jlmerican Gymnastic Union 



Normal School of the North American Turnerbund. In 
Boston, Worcester, Cambridge, and a considerable num- 
ber of other cities in Massachusetts and New England, 
Swedish gymnastics have been introduced more or less 
completely into the public schools. Mixed systems of an 
eclectic character are in vogue in the schools of Brook- 
lyn, Washington, New York, and Providence. The pro- 
motion of gymnastic teaching in the public schools has 
ever been one of the cherished aims of the Turnerbund. " 

While the Turner societies were primarily organized 
for physical and mental education of adults, the main- 
tenance of schools of gymnastics for boys and girls was 
made obligatory for all societies of the Bund, until such 
time when the public schools should give adequate phys- 
ical training to their pupils. Whenever, therefore, a fav- 
orable opportunity presented itself, boards of education 
were petitioned to introduce gymnastics. The Turner 
societies were always ready to co-operate with school 
boards, and in many cities the teachers and leaders of 
these societies taught gratuitously (often for years) in 
order to let results convince skeptical school boards of 
the value of school gymnastics. 

Although introduced into the school systems of some 
of the cities of the middle western states in the sixties 
and seventies (in Cincinnati as early as 1 860) gymnastics 
never became an integral part of the school work for any 
great length of time. In fact, Dr. Hartwell states in his 
report "that even now (1898) no important city or town 
of the United States has succeeded in maintaining for fif- 
teen successive years a genuine and adequate system of 
school gymnastics." 



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Jl Brief History of the 



It is, therefore, with some measure of pride, that we 
are able to report that practically all the cities Dr. Hart- 
well refers to are at present, thirteen years later, not only 
successfully conducting free exercises in their schools, 
but have adopted the policy of installing in all school 
buildings gymnasiums, or playrooms, and of equipping 
the schoolyards as open-air gymnasiums or playgrounds. 

The successful introduction of physical training into 
the public schools naturally had its influence upon pri- 
vate and parochial schools, and even upon some colleges 
and universities with the result that these also made 
gymnastics part of their regular work. 

But there is another part of physical education which 
owes much of its success to the early efforts of the Turners. 
We refer to the play movement. Play ever was an inte- 
gral part of Turnen, of gymnastics. Guts Muths', as well 
as Jahn's gymnastics, were conducted in the open. The 
activities upon these grounds were mainly games and 
what is now grouped under the name of track and field 
work. Exercises upon apparatus were added later, as 
being essential for winter and for indoor work. As early 
as the late sixties boys and girls in Cincinnati enjoyed 
the giant stride and swings in the large playground or 
garden, as it was then called, back of the old Turner 
Hall, and did stunts upon the horizontal bars, jumped 
and vaulted into jumping pits filled with tan-bark, threw 
the javelin and played ball. And, as in Cincinnati, so it 
was in other cities. It was, therefore, perfectly natural 
when the modern playground movement swept over 
Europe and over the United States that the Turnerbund 
was again to be found in the foreground as one of its 
most ardent and intelligent advocates, and that the Bund's 



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North Jlmerican Gymnastic Union 



teachers and leaders were again willing to co-operate in 
organizing and supervising playgrounds. 

A recent questionaire sent to cities where there are 
Turner societies shows that gymnastics were introduced 
into the schools of fifty-two cities either by the direct 
efforts of the Turner societies of these cities or through 
the efforts of the district organizations. These cities in 
the year 1910 had a population of 16,083,400, and a 
school population of 2,085,763.* The physical training 
work in these cities is supervised by 352 teachers. 

The time devoted daily to gymnastics averages fifteen 
minutes in primary and grammar grades, and two week- 
ly periods of forty-five minutes each in the high schools. 
While the work is obligatory for practically all elemen- 
tary grades, only about one third of the cities have gym- 
nastics obligatory for all four high school years; two years 
seem to be the rule. 

The questionaire showed that recent years have 
brought about several marked developments in the phy- 
sical training work of the public schools. The first is the 
installation of gymnasiums in the buildings devoted to 
elementary education (the high schools in most cities 
have long since had gymnasiums). Forty-one cities re- 
port that they are beginning to equip their schools with 
gymnasiums; the total number of gymnasiums is 323. 
Chicago reports that it has 70 gymnasiums in its 
schools, while St. Louis reports 37 and Cincinnati 28. 
Quite a number state that all new buildings are being 
equipped with gymnasiums or playrooms. 

The second development is the building of shower 
baths and even of swimming pools in the elementary 

* These figures. as well as all others, apply only to cities in which it was reason- 
ably certain that gymnastics were introduced through the efforts of the Turnerbund. 



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Jl Brief History of the 



schools. The third is the equipping of playrooms for 
indoor play. The greatest forward step, however, is the 
recognition that the yard of every school is the natural 
playground for most of the children attending the school. 
This brought with it the enlargement of school yards and 
the equipment of the same with gymnastic and play ap- 
paratus. Thirty-three cities report that their school 
grounds are being equipped. The total number of 
equipped schoolyards is 537. Indianapolis reports that 
all of her 61 schools have equipped yards. Philadel- 
phia reports 58 and Kansas City 40; and quite a num- 
ber of smaller cities report that practically all of their 
schoolyards (numbering from 10 to 25) are equipped. 
It is interesting and encouraging to note that although 
this wider use of the schoolyards is of more recent origin, 
and has been introduced in fewer cities as yet, the num- 
ber of equipped school yards or playgrounds is already 
greater than the number of equipped gymnasiums and 
playrooms, i. e. 41 cities with 323 gymnasiums as against 
33 cities with 537 playgrounds. 

Summarizing, the results of this investigation show 
that the Turnerbund has been and still is an active and 
efficient agent promoting rational physical training in the 
schools of the United States. 




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North Jlmerican Gymnastic Union 



HISTORY OF THE NORMAL COLLEGE OF 
THE NORTH AMERICAN GYM- 
NASTIC UNION 

The Normal College of the North American Gym- 
nastic Union is the oldest American institution for the 
education of teachers of physical training. 

The Normal School of the North American Gymnas- 
tic Union was reorganized in 1866. Prior to 1875, the 
school was a traveling institute of gymnastics, whose 
earliest courses were completed in the city of New York. 
The institute was then transfered to Chicago. In Oc- 
tober, 1871, the great fire in Chicago ended the existence 
of the institute in that city, and in 1872 the school was 
reopened in the city of New York. 

From 1875 to 1888, Milwaukee was the seat of the 
Normal School. From 1889 to 1891, the school tem- 
porarily made its home in the city of Indianapolis. At 
the end of this transitional period, the North American 
Gymnastic Union had completed a gymnasium building 
adjoining the new home of the National German- Amer- 
ican Teachers' Seminary and the German and English 
Academy at Milwaukee. The three schools were united 
in a way that enabled each to preserve its individuality, 
and at the same time to utilize the teaching facilities of 
the other two schools. 

In 1902, the scope of the work of the Normal School 
was materially extended. From 1902 to 1907, the fol- 
lowing courses were given: Course A. A special course 
for the students of the National German- American Teach- 
ers' Seminary. — Course B. A one-year course for male 
students of the Normal School who had attained the 



a: 



(59) 



Jl Brief History of the 



knowledge of German required for admission to the first- 
year class of the Teachers* Seminary, but did not meet the 
entrance requirements for course C. — Course C. 1902— 
1904: A one year course for students of the Normal 
School who had attained the knowledge of English re- 
quired for admission to the second-year class of the 
Teachers' Seminary. 1904-1907: A one-year course for 
students of the Normal School who held an American 
high school diploma or had passed equivalent entrance 
examinations. — Course D. A one-year course for students 
of the Normal School who, in addition to the qualifica- 
tions prescribed for course C, had a thorough knowledge 
of the German language. 

At a joint meeting of the governing boards of the 
three schools, held September 29, 1906, it was agreed 
that after August 31, 1907, the National German- Ameri- 
can Teachers' Seminary and the Normal School of Gym- 
nastics should be conducted as separate and independ- 
ent institutions. At the same meeting, the gymnasium 
building was sold to the German and English Academy. 

In January, 1907, the National Executive Committee 
of the North American Gymnastic Union adopted resolu- 
tions to the effect that after August 31, 1907, the Normal 
School of Gymnastics be conducted in the city of Indian- 
apolis under the name of "The Normal College of the 
North American Gymnastic Union n ; that one-year, two- 
year, and four-year college courses be offered prospec- 
tive teachers of physical training who, prior to matricula- 
tion, completed the four-year course of an approved 
American high school, or who pass equivalent entrance 
examinations in high school subjects, including at least 
three years of high school English; and that in addition 



(60) 



North Jlmerican Gymnastic Union 



to physical training and practice in teaching, the work 
of each college year includes courses in letters and science 
equivalent to one year's work as counted by universities 
toward the baccalaureate degree. 

In March, 1 907, the Normal College was incorporated 
under the laws of the State of Indiana as an institution 
of learning empowered to confer academic titles and de- 
grees. In June, 1910, the College was accredited in Class 
A by the Indiana State Board of Education, which ex- 
empts applicants for positions in the Public and High 
Schools of Indiana from examination. 

The Normal College was opened in the German 
House at Indianapolis on September 23, 1907. 



CONCLUSION 



It is not presumptuous to remark that in the sixty-one 
years of its existence the Turnerbundhas been an impor- 
tant factor in the cultural development of this republic. 
From the very inception of their organization, in what- 
ever principles they have advocated, it has always been 
the serious aim of the Turners to contribute their 
share toward the fruitful development of the country. To 
be sure, these men may not always have been on the right 
track. In their eager desire for reform they may have 
overshot the mark at times, but every unprejudiced his- 
torian will agree that as citizens of this country they have 
been honest and unselfish in their activities. They were 
never diverted from their goal by harsh criticism or by 



(61) 



111 



Jl Brief History 



the superior smiles of those who claimed to know better, 
for they have kept in mind the spirit of Goethe's words: 

"Wer fertig ist, dem ist nichts recht zu machen; 
Ein Werdender wird immer dankbar seinl" 

"A mind, once formed, is never suited after. 
One, yet in growth, will ever grateful be." 




The Cheltenham-Aetna Press 
Indianapolis 



(62) 



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